My name is Frank and I have 6 plus years of experience in the IT domain. Our company recently started implemented ITIL into practice and I have a key role in implementing ITIL.

I have no idea of what ITIL is except for the basic concepts. So, I intend to take up the Foundation course. Could someone help me with good training organizations which is economical and also effective. My company is sponsoring this course for me and I need to pass. So, obviously I' am looking for the training provider who could help impart good knowledge and also ensure I pass.

So your company is setting up for failure in regards to IT Service Management and in addition, they will get you training and certified in ITIL in order to satisfy / provide a scapegoat for the failure

Two points -

ITIL Training

You can use Google or other search engines to find a training company in the US (East Coast). There are several companies - national, international and regional that would provide training on the Individual training so that the Individual can pass the ITIL Certification.

The Foundation Course is the initial course. It is usually 3 - 5 days of course work with an Exam
There are intermediate course / exams and a ... cough cough ... final exam which one done .. you can proudly hold and show to your company that You have the ITIL Expert Certification. This would roughly cost the company some where betwen $5K and $10k in totality. You would spend several periods of time per course / exam of 1 week at a time over how many months it would take to pass all the course and exams.

Of course, you need to have more than the ITIL Foundation in order to be the point for the Implementation of IT Service Management using ITIL Better (Best) Practice. Not only for your sake but for the justification that the company will need to explain why their Implementation of IT Service Management was doomed to fail in the first place

Now to the IT Service Management Implementation using ITIL

You are NOT qualified to do this. The training you will get will NOT ensure that the implementation will be successful. The company has chosen the perfect foil to fail and then the Senir Mgmt can point to you as the cause of the failure

So why ?

If your company has an IT Department, it is doing IT Service Management. - however badly, inefficient, or the opposite - effective, efficient and well.

There is NO way to IMPLEMENT ITIL. ITIL is not a product nor a service nor any other IT package that can be installed.

Your company does not have a clue - as well as you - as to what ITIL is and what it means

ITIL is a set of better practices about the entire IT Service Management spectrum - from the development of a project and the completion thereof as well as the running of a IT Department for internal or external users.

ITIL represents the 'common sense' that is NOT usually in IT Departments

In order to establish B.P. in an IT organization, there has to be IT Service Management. IT SM exists when you deliver a service and have IT techs fix it for the users who are using the service - whether it is the finance department or the two guys in the next room.

ITIL tells you to develop interlinked processes that are well document and gives advice on how to do well - using the 20+ years of historical evidence.

So, go to your company, get them to pay for the courses / exams in order to get the Expert certification. Check the Official ITIL Site - (I cant put the link here). This will satisfy your requirements

- stop calling it an ITIL project and start calling it a service improvement project

- get and devour the ITIL books and also theISO20000v standard document and also the CobIT document.

- confirm that your 6 years plus experience in the IT domain includes several yours experience service management (as opposed to purely technical activity. If not then you will struggle proportionally to your lack of experience.

- forget the training; or get expedited courses through all the main areas irrespective of the exams (I don't know if that is feasible or allowed), because following the structure all the way with certificates will take rather too long for a project that seems to be already under way.

- analyse, using your reading to inform your approach, your current service management system and identify the areas most in need of improvement

Just to emphasise by repetition what John said, there is no such thing as ITIL service management (there is only IT service management and you are already managing your services or you would not be in business._________________"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

I admit I am quite new to the world of ITIL, but what I understood of ITIL certification within companies is that to implement ITIL best practices effectively, the lower level implementation guys need to get the Foundation certification and senior managers need to get some relevant intermediate certifications as well. If one of the two groups is clueless about ITIL, it won't work. I know that is simplistic, but is it very far from the truth?

Regarding the certification, I am the only guy I know who ended up getting the ITIL v3 Foundation certificate twice! The first time because I had to (part of the minimum training required) and then after 2 years, in a different company, for the same reason! There was no other option and I had to get my min. training days done....hence, a revision So I guess I am in a unique situation of being able to compare providers from 1st hand experience:) I did it from two different providers, with very different teaching styles. First time it was from QA - very exhaustive (and exhausting) 3 days where the guy just rammed home all the concepts. Very energetic fellow. The second time was from projstudy - 2 days, with probably half the study material (or was it because I knew the stuff?) and surprisingly, less intense. My scores though were identical - 36 and 37.

for starters it is not possible to "implement" ITIL. It cannot be done. ITIL is guidance. It is not a system. It is not even a complete framework. All you can do with ITIL is use its "wisdom," concepts and ideas to inform the way you design your ITSM system. If an organization is attempting to "implement" ITIL then it is on a wrong road and no amount of training on the mechanics of ITSM as seen by ITIL will correct that.

There is no need to get any certification or even training in order to conduct improvements to an ITSM system. An experienced (and intelligent) service manager could do rather well without them. If such a person wanted to know whether he understood everything ITIL talks about, he could read the books.

Having said all that, if you want to focus on ITIL in developing your ITSM system, then you will want all your staff to understand ITIL (not just implementation staff). To achieve this, it is not unreasonable to put your staff through the ITIL training. However the foundation training does little more than explain concepts and teach the terminology, as I understand it, and is certainly not sufficient to compensate for general inexperience or low levels of ITSM maturity in a way that would equip people to take part in any serious improvement program. If staff are not already capable of performing improvement activities, then the foundation course will not make much difference to their capability. and if they are, the superficial level of the foundation will not enhance their capabilities by much.

Using foundation ITIL as the mainstay of an ITSM improvement exercise is fraught with perils._________________"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

I should add that some training companies may go well beyond the bare requirements to pass the foundation course and there is likely to be added value from them._________________"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718